NukeHavoc's page

The Blackrazor Guild encountered the Shoosuva lair within Kerzit's Fane last night, and lo, there was much ranting and raving about the power of these monsters relative to their Challenge Rating. There were two major areas of complaint:

1. Hit Dice relative to CR: The monsters have 18 HD and a CR of 8; I think their initial shock was based on the assumption that HD = CR, but looking at the d20 SRD rules for improving monsters, it looks like undead hit dice are pegged at 4 HD = 1 CR, which would give them a base CR (just based on hit dice) of 4.5. Their subtype is extraplaner, but again, looking at the Improve Monster rules I don't think that makes them outsiders, becuase their type remains undead. That could explain a good chunk of their confusion.

Does that math sound right?

I think most of their shock came when their super-undead-destroying cleric tried -- and failed -- to turn them using a near-perfect roll ... and failed (the monsters counting as HD 22 because of extra turning, and he only affecting creatures of up to HD 21).

2. Creaping Paralysis: This particularly nasty supernatural bite attack seemed overly powerful for a CR 8 creature; it's a fairly unique ability so I'm not sure how it stacks up with other abilities. The ability only ended up affecting one character (everyone else made their saves) so I think their fears were somewhat exaggerated.

Having run the combat, and going from a gut-instinct level, these monsters feel like a CR 10 creature to me, what with their DR, fine assortment of feats, and high hit die. I'm curious to hear what others think.

Ken

I'm running Maure Castle as a successor campaign to the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. The party entered the dungeon around 12th level (with about half of those being survivors of Elemental Evil) and are now about 13th level. I've accumulated four deaths.

* Willum, Cleric of Pelor: Willum had his sex changed to female and alignment turned to chaotic evil by the belt of giant strength and cap of opposite alignment found in the Weaver's Chamber This drove "Williana" silently insane, and as the adventurers spread out to explore the rest of the level, she decided to murder her ally and then flee the dungeon. Near the amber pool, as she and the loremaster Alistair were examining the chalice on the center pedastal, WIlliana pushed the mage into the water. This immediately caused the hetfish to swarm and attack. The mage screamed out for help, the rest of the party arrives and Williana successfully bluffs them into thinking that Alistair's was driven mad by the sudden transformation of his robe of eyes into a robe of vermin and that it was the gnolls elsewhere on the level that did it. The party believed her, at least for a moment, and let passed to hunt down the gnolls. Once they got Alistair out of the water though, they realized their mistake and ran after Willian, who was trying to flee through the Unopenable Doors. She turned and fought the others as they closed, and ultimately fell to the quickened blade of Ian, the party's ranger/rogue.

* Ian, Ranger/Rogue: Turned to stone by a blow from the stone golem's cockatrice whip in the statue area of the Great Hall. He was thankful for this, as it kept him from being killed outright as the rest of the party fled the golem and the dungeon. He was later restored to his true form. This was very nearly a TPK, and only a well-timed and well-placed <i>wall of force</i> allowed them to escape.

* Gaiseric, the Rapscallion of Greyhawk, aka "Scrappy": Killed by the symbols of death hidden behind the Tapestry of the Lost City within Tomorast's Hold when he lifted up said tapestry. He is later raised and decides to retire from adventuring.

* Seamus, Wizardly Monk: Killed by the self-same lifting of the trapped tapestry by Gaiseric.

* Sven, Terramancer: The elementalist *nearly* died when he decided that his elemental protections should be more than enough to protect him from the pool of acid ... and then was very surprised at the sound of 20d6 being rolled. He barely made it out of the pool alive.

The party is preparing to enter the third level now, having just succeeded in unlocking the Shadow Vault in their previous outing to the dungeon.

My hook for the party's being in the dungeon is to stop the Cult of Death Undying (a group of powerful necromancers and their followers) from finding the hidden portal to the Fading Land of Necros (demiplane ruled by various undead). This effectively means that there's a rival group of evil adventurers trying to explore Maure Castle as well, and occasionally leaving behind undead monstrocities for the party to deal with. The party had been ahead of the cultists for a while (the cultists are having just as hard a time with it as they are) but now the party has been out of the dungeon for three months.

In that time the Death Unying cultists have pushed into the third level and fought the forces there, but ultimately been driven back by a personal counterassault by Eli. As they fled they raised undead minions to secure (or at least hinder re-occupation) of the 1st and 2nd levels).

Real-life complications often keep the party mages from showing up for adventures, so I created an NPC to aid them, Jakob Dworkin, Cleric of Dalt (which, having just read "The Greater Halls" may turn out to be a good move on my part (though I suspect he may need to be "disappeared" before the party to the Statuary, as I don't want them to be overly reliant on him for teleporation solutions they should come up with themselves).

Steve's suggestion about using "gaurds and wards" is brilliant, I plan on using that in my next session to make life a little more ... interesting for the party. If they want to take 3 month breaks in-game breaks from exploring the dungeons, then they need to assume that the inhabitants of those dungeons are going to react.

We return to Maure Castle on Friday, so my death toll may be up by Saturday. :)

I just finished reading through "Salvage Operation", and I'm intending to run it on Friday in my game; it just so happens to fit with where my party is. I am, however, very disappointed with the over-powered, heavy handed, and downright-broken uber-box that holds the treasure that the PCs seek.

The description of the box is as follows:

"The special box is made of a rare form of magically enhanced iron. Resistant to rust and weapon blows, it is also *arcane locked* at caster level 14; anyone who speaks the password ... can open it without difficulty. It still contains the cloak of resistance +5 and three figurines of wonderous power (a bronze griffon, an ebony fly and a marble elephant)...

This box irks me. It's clearly been designed to keep the PCs from opening it, and its done so in such a way that smacks of a DM decree: "You can't open this box because I don't want you to."

Simply having a box with a high hardness rating and the arcane lock would have been sufficient for this (though enterprising PCs would undoubtedly have gotten it open) but instead the writer goes above and beyond normal game mechanics to introduce a near-indestructable box who's mere description would probably have most unscruploulous PCs salivating.

What bugs me most really, is the fact that the design of the box ignores all D&D rules, not even trying to give us actual game stats for it. I know that this sort of thing happens in home campaigns -- heck, I've done it myself -- but I expect more from Dungeon.

In figuring out how to handle this, I'm thinking of statting out the box with a high hardness, and perhaps adding some additional magic protection to it -- perhaps a glyph of warding (or in keeping with the high-level *arcane lock*, maybe a *greater glphy of warding* with a high-level summoning spell) combined with a stern warning *not* to open the box.

To compensate for the increased chance that the PCs will open the box, I'll reduce the treasure in side to something a little more down to earth; maybe a cloak of resistance +3 and one figurine.